Summary Of The Film Psycho

The film Psycho (1960) directed by Alfred Hitchcock portrays Norman Bates isolated from society with an interest in taxidermy and an unnaturally close relationship with his mother. Norman is diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID), referred to in the past as multiple personality disorder in which two or more distinct personalities, often called subpersonalities, each having a unique set of memories, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions (source). Throughout the film, one of Norman’s subpersonalities takes center stage and dominates his functioning. He uses his own recessive personality and his mother’s primary persona. DID is thought to result from a lifetime of excessive repression (source). Psychodynamic theorists believed that the continuous use of repression is motivated by traumatic childhood events, particularly abusive parenting (source). In Norman’s case he murdered his mother and her partner 10 years prior because she was about to wed again. Norman was jealous and afraid of losing her attention because she was the only woman he had ever known to love. Feeling guilty and confused about his inhumane act that he brought his mother’s corpse back into the house and used his

Norman does not have the typical villain look as one would see in today’s upcoming horror movies. Instead, he appears as the boy next door; timid, introverted, and mysterious. I learned that individuals with DID are aware of their personalities switching and some of their actions. Most individuals with DID experience some degree of amnesia towards their switching, however, many can remain co-conscious with at least some of their alters (Dell, 2006). Co-Consciousness is the ability for two or more alters to remain aware of each other or the outside world as the same